Apparatus for making porous material



Feb. 8, 1944.

J. Rf PARSONS ABPARATUS FORMAKING POROU S MATERIAL Original Filed Dec. 9, 193'? i etented Feb. 8 @4 3 amass APPARATUS FOR MAKING POROUS MATERIAL Joseph R. Parsons, Chicago, Ill., assignor to United States Gypsum Company, Chicago, 11].,

a corporation of Illinois Original application December 9, 1937, Serial No.

178,872. Divided and this application May 17, 1941, Serial No. 393,890

This invention relates to an apparatus for making porous products. More particularly this invention relates to an apparatus for producing lightweight, porous ceramic'materials useful for' sound and heat insulation as well as other industrial uses.

This application is a division of Serial No. 178,872, filed December 9, 1937, now Patent No. 2,271,845, dated February 3, 1942.

According to general practice, ceramic ware is produced by incorporating water with clay or other argillaceous materials. The mixture is thoroughly milled and pugged until the desired plasticity is obtained. The clay is then molded 1 Claim. (Cl. 25143) in conventional processes for producing ceramic ware.

A further and additional object of this inven-' tion is to provide an apparatus forthe continuous production of lightweight ceramic ware.

These and other objects of this inventionwill become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the accompanying drawing and consideration of the following detailed description.

In general the apparatus of this invention may be operated in the following manner: Ceramic materials such as clay, waste firebrick or fire clay, and the like, or other raw materials,

into shape,-dried and subsequently fired. One of 15 are subjected to drying and grinding or comthe important costfactors in the ceramic indusminuting in order to reduce the material to fine try is the milling and pugging costs. The colparticles. The particles are then passed through loidal nature of the clay material renders the a furnace, preferably in gaseous suspension. molded clay mass very diflicult to dry, and un- The temperature of the furnace and the time aleven shrinkage and warping of the molded artilowed for the particles to remain therein are calcle often occurs. Thus, in general practice and culated to allow the surfaces of the individual in spite of all efforts of the-operator, a large perparticles to come into a fused or molten state. centage of the product must be discarded as The interior of the particles remains solid or in culls The methods that have been previously such a condition that the particles will not flow used for the production of lightweight ceramic together to any marked degree when contacted materials are similar to that indicated above. -with each other. The particles are collected in Usually, however, a combustible material such a zone of the furnace in a mass, each particle. as sawdust, naphthalene, or other organic vma-- adhering to one or more of the others by virtue terial is incorporated into the molded clay mass. of their respective fused surfaces. The mass is The combustible material is then burned out dursubsequently cooled, resulting in a highly porous ing the firing, and voids are left in the mduc't. and lightweight ceramic material that is useful Gas-liberating substances are also sometimes in building construction, as for sound and heat corporated with the clay in order to lend porosity nsulation, and also as filter media, ceramic ware, to the resulting product. Porous materials pro- 1 duced by this method are even more dimcult Ceramic materials that may be utilized n predry and fire properly than ordinary ceramic paring the product are clay and other argillaceous ware, since the voids present in the material act Ega 9 as porfelam sh 1 i c ay, 51 iceous c ays, 0 er r1c c ays, an S g fii fi ggj gf Pockets fol. mmsturepre-s-i the like. Burned firebrick and other clay prod- It is an object of this invention to provide an ucts P be f f apparatus forproducinganew lightweight porous It Is desirable in preparing the product to mat 1 hi h l f h t utilize fine particles of raw materials of sub- W c i par mu afly usefm or stantially the same size, since a larger surface and sound Insulin, fi t f i T area of particles is. exposed and a greater space paratus embodying this invention 15 part cularly is occupied than by a corresponding amount of useful for the production of porous ceramic ware more coarsely ground material of varying by f method' thus avoldmg high cost, ticle size. In ,order further to increase the space puggmg and decreasing the loss due to waste. between the particles the addition f fiumng A further Object Of this invention is provide agents such as asbestos or mineral wool, cyanite, an appa f r th p du tion f a new p us 50 and the like is also within the scope of this inlightweight material in which the slow and tedivention, The flumng agents may act to further qus method of firing the product is eliminated. separate the particles either by holding the par- A still further object of this invention is to' ticles apart mechanically or by liberating gas P vi n apparatus f r forming a new lightduring the formation of the porous mass, thus inweight porous material from the culls obtained creasing the size of the voids between the particles. A material of this type can be introduced-into the ceramic material before or after grinding in suitable millsof conventional types such' as ball mills, etc. The type of flufilng agent used generally depends upon the final tempera- I ture at which the insulating material is to be put into service. For low temperature work, asbestos or mineral wool works very satisfactorily. For higher temperatures, there are a number of needle-like crystals from which the material can be selected. For instance, cyanite has a needle-like crystalline structure which not only aids in flufilng but also on heating expands, which greatly aids in lightening the mass. Other suitable mineral fluifing agents are vermiculite, crystalline pyrophyllite,- andalu'site, sillimanite, and silica, the latter preferably at or above 500 C., at which temperature it has an expanding effect. Gas-producing or gas-liberating materials such as gypsum'may be incorporated into the dry mix which, when exposed to the high to obtain a fusing effect. However,.if the insulating material is to be used at extremely high temperatures, it is preferable that no fluxing ingredientbe added during the production of the insulating ceramic product.

The accompanying drawing illustrates diagrammatically one preferred embodiment of the invention. The apparatus indicated thereinis given by.way of example only, and is not intended that this invention'be limited in any way thereby.

In the embodiment illustrated the raw materials comprising the ceramic material, with or without'flufilng or fluxing agents, are introduced into any suitable grinder l which comminutes the material to very fine particles. If a flux and fiufiing agent are used, suitable-proportions byweight of the raw material have been found to be:

' Per cent Burned fire .clay -a 88 Asbestos Sodium chloride 2 the ground material is subsequently passed into a separator and dryer 2, of conventional design, or directly into a furnace 3. In the dryer-separator 2 the fines are separated from the oversize'particles and dried, if necessary, by any suitable method. This is usually accomplished by ,.Dassing a currentof air through the apparatus 6 2, the fine particles being removed in air sus-' pension and the' oversize particles settling to the lower regions of the apparatus. The oversize particles may be returnedto the grinder I by any suitable means 4, and the fines are introduced by any suitable means 5- into the furnace} heated preferably externally by burners B'or other means. The furnace 3 may include a sifting device I through which the fine parl- .ti l s may be passed in order to distribute them evenly in the furnace and sift out oversize particles. The fine particles introduced into the furnace 8 are allowed to settle to the bottom of the furnace by force of gravity. During settling, the particles pass through three temperature zones of the furnace 3: a preshrinking zone a, in which the ceramic matter is preshrunk and traces of water are removed; a surface softening or fusing zone b, in which the surface of each particle is fused under the intense heat supplied by the burners I5; and a bonding zone c, where the particles finally collect and become bonded together by virtue of their fused surfaces. For each type of raw material used, the temperature, the size of the particles and the time which is required for the particles to pass through the softening zone may vary widely and may be carefully controlled with respect to each other. Thus, too low heat for too short a time may not allow the surfaces of the particles to soften and the particles may not be bound together on entering'the bonding zone; and, if the temperature is too high, the particles may soften and become liquid throughout and fuse .completely. thus forming a solid nonporous mass in the bonding zone. The temperature in the bonding zone 0 is somewhat less than that in the surface-softening zone b in order ,that the particles will bond together; and, in the embodimaterial 8 is formed.

The porous material 8 may be removed from the bottom end of the furnace intermittently or, as indicated in the diagram; by a continuous method such as a continuous conveyor 9. It should be noted that the material 8 itself acts as insulated to the conveyor 9 when the latter is passing through the intense heating zone of the firing furnace 3. Thus the need for expensive refractories to protect the conveyor 9 is avoided, and a number of problems involving insulation of the conveyor and the conveying equipment are diminished. The material, which in this case is a continuous sheet 8, is preferably passed through an annealing oven I0 after leaving the firing furnace 8 in order to remove whatever .strains might be in the product 8.

The solid porous mass 8 after being removed from the annealing oven It may be treated in a variety of ways, depending upon the desired use of the product; for example, the edges may be smoothed off and trued up by means of a grinding wheel-or wheels, the upper one of which is indicated at H in the drawing. In the continuous process the sheet of porous material coming from the annealing oven l0 may be cut into any desired length by a carborundum saw I! or other suitable method to form bricks l3 or other units. Rollers and a second conveyor are indicated at I l and i5, which may be used for transporting the porous sheet 8 and bricks I3.

Though the drawing illustrates the production of an insulation brick by this method, it is apparent that other ceramic ware can be produced likewise. For instance, the conveyor can be provided with a plurality of molds which may pass ment shown, it is here that the solidporous The moldtogether with its deposit may then be whatever strains are present. The resulting product may then be treated in any desirable manner such as cutting it into desirable forms or passing it through a ceramic enameling spray vat, in accordance with conventional practice.

In utilizing the conveyor or molds to carry away the hot porous ceramicbody from the firing furnace, it is preferred to sprinkle or cover the conveyor with silica sand or some other material in a product of decreased porosity due to the tendency of the smaller particles to become lodged in between the larger particles.

In burning ordinary clay products to produce a lightweight ceramic body, the time required for burning is directly proportional to thefsize, shape forwarded to the annealing furnace-to remove furnace usually can be decreased considerably. In place of clay or ceramic grains, silica sand and certain other refractory materials can be bonded in the same manner. Of course, the tem peratures used for these materials are usually very high, and the furnace may be modified ac cordingly to produce the desired result.

While a particular embodiment of this invention is shown above, it will be understood, of course, that the invention is not to be limited thereto, since many modifications may be made, and it is contemplated, therefore, to cover by the appended claim any such modifications as fall within the true spirit and scope of this invention.

The invention herein claimed is:

Apparatus for manufacturing porous materials comprising an elongated, vertical, substantially and shrinkage required in the final product. Therefore, another advantage of this invention a is to eliminate the slow and tedious method of firing ceramic ware by burning. The clay grains are shrunk individually while in suspension in a period of a few seconds at extremely high temperatures. Thus the size and shape of the fin 'ished product is not altered after the porous product is formed. In some operations it has been found desirable to preburn the entire mass, grind it, and then refluff it as it enters the furnace. By this operation the size and type of unobstructed heating chamber, a fine mesh screen adjacent the upper end of said heating chamber and positioned to pass free finely divided solid particles therethrough and to distribute the particles substantially uniformly throughout the cross-sectional area of said-chamber so that they descend in said chamber by gravity in gaseous suspension and in substantially noncontacting relationship, means for heating the chamber at a predetermined temperature so that only the surfaces of said particles descending through the chamber are softened sufllclently tocohere when said particles are contacted, a continuous conveyor forming a movable floor for said chamber for receiving said particles in the form of a porous integral mass, and means operating said conveyor to remove said mass from said chamber in the form of a slab.

JOSEPH R. PARSONS.

Patent No. 2,3L1 ,o59.

CERTIFICATE OF. commcnon.

. v y-8, 19 m,

JOSEPH Rf PARSONS..

It is hereby cqsrtiflod that error appears in the painted spc ificltion offlze abovq numbered patqnt requiyln gcorrqction as followa: Page 2 soc- 'dxid column, 11no37,;ror insulated read --insu1'ator--; and that the said Letters Pntbnt -ahou1d be re'hd with this correction thgroin that the same may. conroim tb'the record or thecage in the Pgtent 0fflce..

sign'ed and sell-ad um 91:; an ofna A. D 191m.

Losli q Frazer (Seal) Acting Commissioner or Patefitsr 

